Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a US representative, said on Wednesday that she will oppose any future US military aid to Israel, including for defensive systems.
In a statement on social media, Ocasio-Cortez said that Israel was fully capable of funding “Iron Dome and other defensive systems”, and that “consistent with my voting record to date, I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and US law”.
Her remarks on Wednesday follow reports that she pledged to oppose any future military aid to Israel during a New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) forum on Tuesday evening.
“Our allies who need our military aid must understand that we will provide it consistent with the Leahy amendment and the foreign assistance act”, Ocasio-Cortez added, referring to a law which prohibits the US from providing military support to army units that violate human rights.
According to City & State, which obtained a partial recording of the DSA forum, Ocasio-Cortez told members: “I have not once ever voted to authorize funding to Israel, and I will never,” adding that “the Israeli government should be able to finance their own weapons if they seek to arm themselves.”
Lay off defending this bullshit right now bro.
I’m an anti-Zionist, I’m going to continue defending not funding Israel, mostly because they are an illegal occupation with decades of history violating international laws and because they are genocidal and actively promoting racist and illegal settler-colonialism.
So no, I’m not going to stop defending my anti-Zionism, thank you.
You are talking up the iron dome which is what we are talking about and you fucking know it.
in what sense am I “talking up” the Iron Dome? the closest thing to this is that I don’t agree with the tankie dogma that the Iron Dome only protects military assets … the Iron Dome clearly protects Israeli citizens as well, and that fact doesn’t necessarily change much - in fact, I also criticized the Iron Dome’s role in protecting citizens as a kind of “enabler”, the safety it provides undermines political will to end and avoid conflicts (not that I want civilians to be treated as valid targets, but the Iron Dome does have problematic consequences this way).
If you don’t want to be thoughtful or read my comments in good faith, and you’re primed to conclude I’m defending Israel regardless, I don’t really care - you don’t have to read my comments, I’m not here to convince anyone of anything and I don’t need to convince you of my anti-Zionism; I’m happy to block you and move on with my life.
To be fair, this is your parent comment and there’s not much to be thoughtful about until your later comments.
that’s fair enough based on just that one comment (maybe I’m just angry from previous interactions in which I have been accused of being a Zionist, banned, and then having what I felt was a reasonable examination of the facts deleted - not been the comfiest day for me)
maybe I just need to step away, it’s been a bad mental health day for me anyway
Hey that’s fair. I’ve had days where I needed to step away from the keyboard because I was getting too lost in going back and forth as well.
You and your mental health is more important than an internet debate :)
Thoughtful, ha ha. I have plenty of thoughts I can assure you, and Israel being protected from retribution from their abuses of the others is one of them. Israel is the Devil. Their population is fucked in the head, and as such, is the devil incarnate, metaphorically speaking. Literally they are Nazis.